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06/10/2007 - West Des Moines, IA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jay Haas stumbled to bogeys on the final two holes Sunday, but it didn't matter as he still claimed The Principal Charity Classic by three strokes.
Haas closed with a two-under 69 to finish at 12-under-par 201. The win was his third of the season and ninth of his Champions Tour career.
He matched Hale Irwin's hot start to a Champions Tour career. Irwin, and now Haas, both picked up nine wins in their first 49 tour starts.
"It's a thrill holding off some great players," said Haas, who earned $240,000 for the win. "Brad Bryant and R.W. Eaks came on there and David Edwards made a nice couple of birdies coming in. It was a long day, but it never seemed like the 18th hole was going to get here."
Eaks fired a seven-under 64 in the final round to end in a share of second place at nine-under-par 204. He was joined there by Bryant (67). Jay Sigel joined Edwards and Mark James in fourth place at minus-eight.
Haas, the reigning Champions Tour Player of the Year, got off to a solid start to put things out of reach. He dropped in a six-foot birdie putt at the first.
The 53-year-old drained a 15-footer for birdie at the fourth to move six clear of the field at 12-under. Two holes later, Haas converted a three-footer for birdie.
From there, Haas admittedly played against the scoreboard. He parred his next eight holes at Glen Oaks Country Club, but still comfortably led by five strokes.
Haas came up short and right of the 17th green. He pitched to 12 feet, but two-putted for bogey. At the last, Haas drove into a fairway bunker and pitched down the fairway.
He knocked his third to 33 feet, then two-putted for another bogey to drop his winning margin to three strokes.
"I was definitely playing the scoreboard there coming in," Haas said. "I got a little sloppy the last couple of holes, but I knew I had a nice cushion coming in. I was playing for bogey those last couple of holes."
Eaks flew up the leaderboard with four birdies over the first six holes. He posted three birdies the rest of the way to cap a bogey-free round of 64. It was a strong round for Eaks, who has been battling a bad back recently.
"I was in the fitness trailer before the round and they worked on me for about an hour," Eaks stated. "I think I learned something. I need to get a massage out here every week. I've been having problems for about 12 weeks, but I think those guys showed me the light."
Bryant, who defeated Eaks in a playoff at the Regions Charity Classic, stumbled out of the gate with bogeys at two and three. Bryant rebounded with three birdies over the next five holes to get to six-under.
After six straight pars around the turn, Bryant birdied three of the last four holes to share second place.
Denis Watson, who won the Senior PGA Championship last month, played in the final threesome, but struggled to an even-par 71 in the final round. He shared seventh place with Morris Hatalsky and Irwin at six-under-par 207.
Andy Bean, Chip Beck, Dave Stockton, Danny Edwards, Vicente Fernandez and Bruce Summerhays were two strokes further back at minus-four.
<< Olsen hat trick leads United past New York
Washington, D.C. (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - D.C. United usually has the upper hand in
its Atlantic rivalry with fellow Eastern Conference team, New York, but
heading into the first matchup of the 2007 season, the visiting Red Bulls were
conside
<< Green downs Remesy in playoff to win at Fontana
Vienna, Austria (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Richard Green bogeyed the final hole of the
BA-CA Golf Open on Sunday to slip back to 16-under-par 268 and create a
playoff with Jean-Francois Remesy, which he won.
Green closed with a one-under 70
<< Cooper expected to miss two months with broken leg
Frisco, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Major League Soccer's FC Dallas announced Sunday
that leading scorer Kenny Cooper suffered a broken right tibia in the team's
3-1 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy on Saturday at Pizza Hut Park. The 22-year
old Ame
<< Tigers designate Lopez for assignment; recall rookie P Miller
Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Tigers designated pitcher Aquilino
Lopez for assignment on Sunday.
The right-handed reliever had one save and a 4.26 earned run average in six
appearances with the Tigers this season.
To rep
A-Rod goes deep twice as Yanks come back to rout Bucs >>
Bronx, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Alex Rodriguez homered twice and Bobby Abreu
finished 4-for-4 with four runs scored and three runs batted in, leading the
New York Yankees to a 13-6 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates and a sweep of
the thr
Sheffield, Tigers pound Mets >>
Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Gary Sheffield fell a double shy of the cycle,
ending 4-for-5 with a pair of RBI and two runs scored, as the Detroit Tigers
pounded the New York Mets, 15-7, in the finale of a three-game set at Comerica
Park.
Gonzalez's hit in 12th gives Reds win over Tribe >>
Cincinnati, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Alex Gonzalez's run-scoring single with two
outs in the bottom of the 12th inning lifted Cincinnati over Cleveland, 1-0,
in a pitchers' duel at Great American Ball Park.
Pinch hitter Chad Moeller rippe
Buehrle finally gets 100th win as Sox salvage finale with Astros >>
Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Paul Konerko homered and Mark Buehrle finally
earned his 100th career victory, as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Houston
Astros, 6-3, to salvage the finale of a three-game set at U.S. Cellular Field.
Kone
Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"
A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.
In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.
"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."
Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.
But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"
Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.
This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.
Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.
In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.
No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.
And that's all any bettor can ask for.
To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
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